Quote Of The Day: Evil Islam Edition

Long before the rise of the Taleban, I learnt not to romanticise Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learnt that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes — and that such “colourful tribal customs” are absolutely, not relatively, evil. Long before al-Qaeda beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and Nicholas Berg in Iraq, I understood that it was dangerous for a Westerner, especially a woman, to live in a Muslim country.
-- Phyllis Chesler

Phyllis Chesler married an urbane, affectionate, Westernized Afghan and moved to Afghanistan to find:

Overnight, my husband became a stranger. The man with whom I had discussed Camus, Dostoevsky, Tennessee Williams and the Italian cinema became a stranger. He treated me the same way his father and elder brother treated their wives: distantly, with a hint of disdain and embarrassment.

Her transformation to "so-called Western feminism" was the result of seeing primitive, exploitative, damaged Islam -- in other words, the Islam most Muslims experience day to day -- and now she works with moderate Muslims to try to bring reform to Islam.

Read her op/ed in the Times of London. It offers unusual insights, intelligence and a spark of hope.